This is what YOU are making... A Mighty Machine of British Workmanship, 1939 UK poster: A cutaway technical drawing

This is what YOU are making... A Mighty Machine of British Workmanship (Vickers-Armstrongs Wellington II)

A cutaway technical drawing of the Vickers-Armstrongs Wellington II bomber, with a specification box (270 mph, 3,000 miles, eight .303 Brownings), sits beside an empty framed panel headed 'This is what YOU are making'. The headline 'A Mighty Machine of British Workmanship' attaches a virtue phrase to the aircraft (glittering generalities), and the 'YOU' casts each factory worker as the maker of the bomber (identity fusion).

Propaganda techniques used in this poster

Glittering generalities Identity fusion

Date: 1939
Period: Second World War
Made by: Ministry of Aircraft Production (printed for H.M. Stationery Office by Johnson Riddle & Co. Ltd., London); drawing by J. H. Clark, copyright 'The Aeroplane'
Region: Western and Central Europe
Country: United Kingdom
Medium: Poster
Issuer type: State
Regime: Churchill Government
Leader: Winston Churchill
Audience: Domestic public
Purpose: Mobilize or secure compliance
Themes: Home front, Science and technology, Labor
Event: World War II
Regime: Churchill wartime government
Leader: Winston Churchill
Source: Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
Source: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Foreign Posters, retrieved October 3, 2026
Rights: Public domain (UK Crown copyright expired; no URAA restoration); hosted by owner decision
Ministry of Aircraft Production; drawing by J. H. Clark. National Archives and Records Administration, 44-PF-54a.

Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

This is what YOU
are making . . . . .

THE VICKERS-ARMSTRONGS WELLINGTON II
(two 1,145 h.p. Rolls-Royce Merlin X motors)

Maximum Speed 270 m.p.h.
Range 3,000 miles.
ARMAMENT
8 BROWNING .303's

THE AEROPLANE Copyright
[drawing signed: Clark]

MINISTRY OF AIRCRAFT PRODUCTION

A MIGHTY MACHINE of BRITISH WORKMANSHIP

PRINTED FOR H.M.S.O. BY JOHNSON RIDDLE & CO., LTD., LONDON, S.E.23

[Plus the drawing's lettered callouts and a caption on the geodetic main spar and nacelle fixings; not transcribed in full.]